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Quantum gravity

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To Solve the Biggest Mystery in Physics, Join Two Kinds of Law

September 7, 2017

Reductionism breaks the world into elementary building blocks. Emergence finds the simple laws that arise out of complexity. These two complementary ways of viewing the universe come together in modern theories of quantum gravity.

Joe Polchinski’s Restless Pursuit of Quantum Gravity

August 7, 2017

The pot-stirring string theorist and quantum gravity theorist never sits still for long.

Where Gravity Is Weak and Naked Singularities Are Verboten

June 20, 2017

Recent calculations tie together two conjectures about gravity, potentially revealing new truths about its elusive quantum nature.

Physicists Uncover Geometric ‘Theory Space’

February 23, 2017

A decades-old method called the “bootstrap” is enabling new discoveries about the geometry underlying all quantum theories.

Quantum Gravity’s Time Problem

December 1, 2016

The effort to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity means reconciling totally different notions of time.

What Sonic Black Holes Say About Real Ones

November 8, 2016

Can a fluid analogue of a black hole point physicists toward the theory of quantum gravity, or is it a red herring?

Physicists Hunt for the Big Bang’s Triangles

April 19, 2016

The story of the universe’s birth — and evidence for string theory — could be found in triangles and myriad other shapes in the sky.

Q&A

Michael Atiyah’s Imaginative State of Mind

March 3, 2016

At 86, Britain’s preeminent mathematical matchmaker is still tackling the big questions and dreaming of a union between the quantum and the gravitational forces.

Quantum Weirdness Now a Matter of Time

January 19, 2016

Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links — not space-time — constitute the fundamental structure of the universe.

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